


Side Runners

by skydancer1895



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gay Ron Weasley, Hurt and comfort, I'm writing this in isolation, M/M, Magical Creatures, Multi, Multiverse, No Ron Weasley Bashing, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix It, Timey-Wimey, they are so smart and idiots, they have suffered enough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23496235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skydancer1895/pseuds/skydancer1895
Summary: It was a muggle thing, a harmless game: Imagening a creature running alongside the car. Or at least that's what the children thought. Now that the muggleborn wizards and witches are in grave danger, their quiet guardians arise. And completely turn the world around.What's a young witch to do, apart from keeping up with it all? And how many versions of one Severus Snape do you really need to make things complicated? Hermione always thought that one would be more than enough...
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape, Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas
Comments: 25
Kudos: 39





	1. solivagant

**solivagant**

[latin, adj.] someone who wanders or travels the world alone

***

As soon as she left the office, a bird dropped dead from the sky and crashed down right in front of her. It laid lifeless on the wet concrete, the fairish wings still spread, the small neck twisted. Hermione sighed. If someone had asked her to describe her last three months in an allegory, this would have been it. But nobody asked her to do things like these any more. Real life wasn't school. Her tasks didn't include abstract thinking, and her grades were the approval of her bosses. Hermione Jane Granger was not top of the class any more.

Who would have thought, she thought sourly, that the walls she'd run into were build from secret social rules of old witches and wizards? Speaking of walls. What had plucked the poor creature out of the air? Out of sheer habit, she inspected it closer.

'Golden Snitchet, Adult. Magical properties of feathers include...' the voice of Professor Snape started in her head. Sometimes she found it weird, remembering information like this: In the voice of her teachers. But it wasn't the weirdest thing going on in her head, not by far.

Still, she couldn't make herself pluck the feathers of the tiny bird. Actually, instead of being smart and logical about it, she suddenly felt hot tears dwell up in her eyes. She shook her head, ensuring herself that her curls were still all stuffed in the chignon, and left the scene in a quick pace.

Crying over a bird. Was this now more or less pathetic than bolting down an IKEA hotdog for dinner, pretending to wait for someone still lost in the furniture labyrinth?

Hermione slithered through the crowd unbothered. Maybe an inherited skill from her mother and grandmother, she mused. For some women, it was better to not be noticed all the time. Maybe even for all, she couldn't say. Despite trying her best, she had never really clicked with most girls. _I'm not like other girls can be both a very bitchy and a very lonely statement, depending on the tone,_ Ginny had once said. While directed at a fellow Harpie, the criticism had hit her like a brick nevertheless.

Someone ran into her, grunted something rude, and dragged her ungently back to reality. Reality was, the day was gloomy, and damp, and another person had almost knocked her off her feet. This meant her guard had been down all the way, meaning her anxiety was now _up_ all the way.

And if it had been a Voldebomber, Mi? she hissed at herself, in her mind, with her grandmother's voice. The shapest mind she had ever encountered.

Voldebomber. Harry's creation, of course, in the chaos after their war. Some leftover Death Eater, opening a book for once, had sadly found information on guerilla warfare in there. And brought them years of fear. And right now, the fear pushed her throat together. Voldeboom, she forced herself to cite, Voldecracker. Say the names, ridicule, make them as small and meaningless as they tried to make her. Once she stumbled into the car and closed the heavy door behind her with a hearty, frame-wobbling smack, Hermione could breath easier.

It was a strange alliance, the blue Ford and the black witch, but she wasn't in the position to turn down a friend. Had never been.

"Home," she said, and the car huffed and puffed in agreement, slithered through the streets just as she had through the crowd. It disappeared with a soft pfffe-te-te-te behind a truck, just to re-appear on the street to Hogsmeade. She had never tried to find out why and how the car could Apperate, or what the conditions were, or where it went at night. She had learned that, yes, some things should better stay unknown.

The car rumpled up the muddy street. Some young witches zipped by on brooms and reminded her that she could stop pretending. Sighing with relieve, she let go of the steering wheel, and allowed her eyes to follow the colorful shapes. They were heading up the tortuous road to New Hogsmeade, bright jellow rain capes and water-repellent triangled headscarves shining almost as homely as the lights in the distance, mirrored and broken in cobblestone.

The car knew where to go, and she was glad for it. Using Point-me while driving always felt stupid. _Hermione Granger, war heroine and smartest witch her age, couldn't find her own damn cottage._ Now that would be another feast for the press. Of course, it started raining again. There were rules about how things were supposed to be, and on days like this, when you felt unfairly abandonned and terribly misunderstood on principle, it absolutely had to rain. Harsh, heavy, highland rain - and nothing else would have been adequate.

Absend-mindedy, Hermione pulled on one of the strands that had escaped her chignon. Smoothed out, her hair would reach far over her chest. Curled as it was, it only touched her shoulders. She pulled it smooth and let go in the rhythm of the telephone poles that framed the streets now, courtesy by the wizarding community: The young inhabitants of the village nowadays simply refused to not communicate with the rest of the world. Sure, the phones talked back when you tried to drunkenly dial your ex, but was that really this much of a problem?

The car took a turn to the left and so did her mind, leaving behind the firewhiskey-indulgent night of wailing at the phone about please calling Ron, and instead digging out an old, calming habit: She imagined a slender creature, almost a squirrel and almost a hare, jumping quickly from pole to pole. Sometimes it took a leap to a tree or bush, swinging in the branches like the lightweight piece of childish fantasy it was, not dragged down by information on gravity and bone density. Something that operated on her rules and her rules alone, in a world that grew bigger every day, and kept unloading tons and tons of rules hidden in faces, gestures and assumptions at her.

When the car stopped, she almost couldn't see the green door under the yellow lantern. Her tears curtained her view, and she was shaking violently. They hadn't gotten her today, no one had tried to get her, but oh they could have. They could have.

After what felt like hours she got out of the car and petted it good night on the roof. As it was her habit she watched it disappear around the corners, rain be dammed, and waited until its headlights disappeared in the foothills of the Forbidden Forest. She stood quietly, breathing in the rich earth and herbs of her cottage garden. "Whatever I am going to do with the rest of my life," she said out loud as an afterthought of her breakdown, not really expecting an answer from the late bumblebees.

"You will certainly not find out in your front yard," said the hare from on top of the birdhouse.


	2. selcouth

**selcouth**

[old English, adj.] unusual, strange, but in a marvelous way

***

Hermione didn't react to it. Instead, she freed her mail and the six (six!) ministry memos from her mailbox, walked inside, unlocked the correct three of her six locks and re-locked them behind her. That way, if someone else tried to enter, they'd always re-lock three on accident, giving her a few moments. A few moments was all she needed nowadays.

She dropped the mail on the side table, lighted up all candles and oil lamps with a flick of her wand, closed her living room curtains for the night, washed her hands in the emaille sink and put on the kettle. All while ignoring the six tiny memo airplanes that gently bopped her arm from time to time, the talking shiny hare outside, and the watchful eyes of Mrs. Jennings next door.

The Wizarding Community - always careful to keep an eye on each other. What was left of Magical Britain huddled togehter here now, changing their Manors and Towers and big city tarot shops for cottages and the comfort that came with the close proximity to Hogwarts. And the worst thing was, Hermione couldn't even look down on them for it. She had done just the same. Or, no. The worst thing was that protection was only half the reason they all had come. They also had come to make sure everyone else was s _taying on the right track_.

After two wars rooted in bigotry and a weird splitter branch of racism, that wasn't a bad idea in itself, she thought. It was starting to turn bad now, with the bombers still around, and a more and more cemented view on what the _right track_ entailed. For example, effronteries like jeans, same-sex couples and sushi were heavily frowned upon. Even the telephone posts were eyed suspiciously now. What would Madame Jennings and the _community_ say to an hallucinated hare?

Hermione felt weird about not being scared of it. She got an unwelcome rush of adrenaline when the kettle whistled, but she was too tired to even jump. So she stayed in this weird mid-existency of bodily anxiety and numbed mind, and finally pushed it all away to sit on the kitchen counter and drink tea, as it was her habit. She also drank in the yellow of her kitchen walls, the white and red table cloth, the dark green milk pot, the herbs and flowers and honey colored wood; the cut in flowers of her cupboard, the brass knocks and striped stoneware mugs.

In between the glass and grey of the New Ministry, her mind was starving for color as much as for meaning. Suddenly she felt old.

She remembered being seventeen, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders for centuries. She remembered being twenty-three, a child lost in the grocery store, where someone would come for her any minute but oh sweet Lord, what if not? Now, at twenty-five, things had just become dull enough to make room for Thoughts. And nouns with a capital letter in a context like this were hardly ever a good thing.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" She said out loud. Had the mountains of paper and rules really dimmed down all curiousity and courage in her? She jumped from the counter, set the tea mug aside, and opened the kitchen windows wide.

The hare had waited patiently. Now it turned around to her, smiled with its eyes, and leaped from the birdhouse in the middle of her garden to the pear tree trunk, the watering can, and the window seat. It moved too slow for jumping and too earthbound for flying, more corporal than a patrons, more ephemeral than a real animal, never touching the ground, following rules she knew. Rules she set a long time ago. It landed in the window. Hermione stood still, staring. It moved an ear.

Not a hare, said her critical mind. _Hare,_ insisted her subconscious mind, and also added that it did not require further discussion. "Do I have to invite you in?" Hermione asked.

"And I thought you already did," answered the not-hare, in her own voice in her mind, when it didn't sound like one of her teachers. It should have been unsettling. It was not. The hare peered in. It didn't seem sure about the kitchen counter, so Hermione took the flowers from the milk can, vanished the water, and turned it upside down. The hare settled on it immediately. It seemed comfortable.

Hermione stood there, clutching the flowers like she had on Harry's and Ginny's hasty wedding, unsure about where to put herself.

The hare tilted its head. "I'm not going to walk you through it," it said. Then, it sat up on its hind legs and started to groom its whiskers.

"Of course not. You're a creature of my imagination, and I am not known for mental shortcuts. So, why am I hallucinating you? A message from the brain that I really need to sleep?"

"No."

"WWW prank?"

"No."

"Stroke?"

"No."

"That's what a stroke hallucination would say."

"Do you smell burned toast?"

"No. Also, that's just an urban myth. All right then. O _nce you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth._ ," she quoted, and the hare stopped grooming to roll its eyes.

"Magical creature, then."

"Of a kind."

"Um, good. Sorry. What is your name... Madam? Sir?"

The hare laughed. Not with a voice, but in a way that made the atoms around it vibrate in a deep, honest happiness. "We do not possess names." It leaped again. It was a kind of jump, a kind of flight, and something else altogether. This time it settled on the old kettle. Its form, while gently glowing, did not reflect.

"Did I daydream you into being, or can all young witches and wizards see you? Are you the only one? Are you bound to the rules of jumping? If so I - I am really sorry, I never meant to -"

"It is natural," the Hare interrupted gently. "Most children dream-see us. Most of the Unfound, anyway. We like running with your kind. It is... fun."

Hermione bit her lip, because she felt it tremble. Having a conversation like this in her kitchen was... magical, actually. Sometimes, all those mindless tasks at work made her forget that she was dealing with actual, real magic. She shushed the ministry notes circling her with a wave of hand, remembered the flowers she still held, fiddled with them before placing them in a mug. All of that had given her enough time to think.

"The Unfound. Muggleborns? Are all of us talking to you and _your_ kind now? Or just you? And why you? Or, why me? Are you breaking the rules in talking to me?"

"In a way." It looked at her, long.

Hermione looked back, and made a decision. "I have seen bad magic," she said slowly. "And alluring magic. None of them feels like mum playing the piano downstairs." She smiled and was suddenly close to tears again, despite having seen her parents only a few days ago, despite being way too old to be homesick in her own home.

"Is that what you see when you look at me?" aasked the hare. Hermione knew that "see" did not refer to visuals here.

"This, and... Cheshire Cat," Hermione blurted out. "Why is that?"

The hare laughed again, and Hermione eased once more. "That is natural, too," the hare said. "We are drawn to the ones who understand our being."

Now, Hermione smiled as well. "So, I will hardly ever get a straight answer from you." The hare twisted its ears _no,_ and soundlessly left through the still open window the minute three more memos arrived through the floo. There was no time to be sad about it. 'Mione, where are you, read the first in Ron's spidery hand.

"Bollocs," she said out loud. All the other memos, bouncing happily to be finally acknowledged, were reminders about today's festivities, too. Two were send to her by her very self. There were so many memorials now that even her mind tendet to let one or two of them slip. But Dumbledores Death Day, of all things?

Hastily, she ran up the stairs to her small bedroom, dropping her clothes into the laundry in a ball, and carelessly slipped into one of the Festive Sets she had prepared in her closet for exactly these occasions. Her mind was her best friend after all, as long as it wasn't her worst enemy.

She hissed a row of spells and profanities at her hair, and just finished applying Madame Andrea Likas Always Amazingly Magical Lipstick the last moment before her portkey, the gold lettered invitation on her nightstand, was activated.


	3. monachopsis

**monachopsis** [noun] the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach.

***

She was transported into the backyard garden of Hagrid's hut like the rest of their inner circle. Ginny scowled at her, but at this point she really didn't care. So she missed Molly Wesley's carefully arranged happy family pre-dinner dinner, so what? She wasn't part of the happy family. 

When Harry hugged her, Hermione felt terrible. He was her brother, her best friend. Of course she was part of the family. Even if Ginny made it difficult nowadays, sometimes. 

They had never really seen eye to eye, the "two most important girls in my life", as Harry had once carelessly put it. The days of a wide-eyed, naive younger girl looking for her council were long gone. The two women eyed each other, even while they went through the hug. Hermione noticed, not without a tiny spark of malice, that Ginny still hadn't lost her pregnancy weight. Her cool quidditch pixy cut had grown out to tired-looking strands. Instead of wind and leather, she nowadays smelled of baby - well, let's say products in the wider means, Hermione decided generously. And Harry still looked at her as if she was the sun, which made it all meaningless. 

Harry, of course, looked splendid. His skin had darkened from the time outside, his eyes glowed as smart and kind as ever, and he held himself with the easy strength of the victorious hunter. 

"Harry James Potter, Autor Extraordinaire", she smiled, when he reacted with a confused eyebrow wiggle to her mustering. 

"Hermione Jane Granger, future minister of magic," he answered warmly, but it still felt like a sting. All she had moved that day, that week, was paper. 

"Aaand me," Ron said, only halfly over-exaggerating the awkwardness of the moment for a laugh. They still all dutifully laughed. 

Now, with the official permission of everyone's shifted focus, Hermione allowed herself to muster her former husband, and his new husband. 

Ron was lanky, red-haired and pale as ever, but wore a smile she had never seen on him before. It was, in lack of a better description, _soft._ Not only did it reach his eyes, it filled them. Alan next to him wore a matching one, and they were not-holding-hands in a very obviously rebellious way. 

She wasn't even that mad, she noticed. It had been... inevitable, in a way. The two of them, they had always been opposites. Attracted, yes, but what of it had been war, adrenalin, the confusion of childhood? And now here they were, the Golden Boys, the loves of their lifes, and herself. None of them seemed to fit into the pumpkin patch any more, she mused. 

"Mimis musings!" Teddy Lupin proclaimed. The kid was blue-haired today, more girlish than boyish, still could not be bothered to correctly say her name, but was aware of the concept of irony and the meaning of the word musings at almost eight. And with that, Hermiones favorite person on the entire planet altogether, full stop.

What other child would have gushed over the fact that she had been zoned out for three full minutes without acknowledging them, with nothing but a joke and yet unbroken enthusiasm about her person? None of the kids Hermione had known at that age, or any age actually. 

The kid flew in her arms, giggling, and Hermione twirled her around three times for the joyous shrieking and two more times for good measure.

"Where do you always go in your head?" Teddy asked and slipped a small, white hand into Hermione's lager brown one. 

"Oh, I just thought about the first time I saw Hagrid," she lied fluently, and as she had hoped the half giant came out of the hut's door as if summoned, wearing a less terrible suit than usually, but his usual Death-Day red eyes. The brave soul, she thought, as the huge man lifted her and Teddy in a bear hug. 

"C'mone now, kids, time t'pay our respects," he mumbled, patting Harry on the head. Harry did, despite his reflexes, not duck. He'd come far, too. 

"Woah," commented Teddy, as the castle came into view. Today the walls shimmered softly with purple and golden stars, to celebrate the literary fallen hero. 

But simply the lights over the lake were a sign Hermione never grew tired of, a spark of hope over the hills, home. 

"Woah indeed," said Alan. "Are you sure I can, you know, enter?" He said quietly to Ron, but not quietly enough. 

"I'll blast the main door out of its angles if not," Hermione stated casually. Definitely not for Ron's sake, who looked at her so thankfully it almost made her sick with memories. No, for Alan himself. No person would deserve to wait outside, like a stray dog. She might not be able to blast the glass ceiling in the ministry ranks to bits, but wood was wood. 

Minerva awaited them on the stairs. Maybe not them especially, but it surely felt that way. There, on the stairs, with the chatter and light and warmth of the Great Hall right in front of her, once again waiting outside to be called in, the past pressed on her from all sides. When the flashes started, she snipped her wand from the wrist holster into her hand, but let go of it once she noticed that no one else had drawn. 

"Potter! Mister Potter! One comment on the latest Voldebomb arrests, please!" 

"Harry! Hi, Harry!" 

"Gin! Gin, over here, please Gin! What do you think about the Cannons this year? Gin!" 

"Witches weekly for the family column, can you -" 

"Here we go," her best friend said with a crooked smile, and he, wive and baby James arranged themselves to another beautiful picture of happy matrimony. Hermione breathed, three times, four times, and made an effort to unclench jaw and shoulders. 

"C'mon," Ron mumbled, and for a moment goosebumps pickled on her neck, from the tone of his voice alone. But of course it was his husband he led into the castle's intestines, his hip Ron's arm snuck around, his ear he whispered something into. Hermione was left to raise an eyebrow at Minerva, who shrugged. It was impossible to keep the press out altogether, so why not give them three to five nicely arranged events a year? It was annoying, but probably clever. 

Followed by Hagrid and Teddy, who both had ducked behind her from the cameras (or in Hagrids case tried to), Hermione once again entered the Great Hall. 

It was, and there could be no doubt, an eye-opener. The hall sparkled in candles, stars, and self importance, and almost bursted with people. Hermione prided herself in only flinching a tiny bit when the Blackwater Boys' frontman started his E-Guitar solo. 

"One would think this water tank would make the riffs more fluent," Hermione tried, hoping for at least a snicker from the boys. Silence answered her. She glanced down to Teddy, who sported long green hair now, and stared at the mermen in wonder. 

"Your Gran will kill me if you put up posters from a mermen rock band, Teddy," Hermione sighted. 

"Why, it's not your fault they're playing here tonight," the kid argumented reasonably. "And I'm not putting up more posters." The huge grin on her face told a different story. 

"Fancy a better view, kiddo?" Hagrid rumbled. To Hermiones young friend's delight, he plucked the child up with one hand and placed it securely on his broad shoulders. To Hermione's delight he didn't even let go when he spotted Madame Maxine. The large trio then went to push away the crowd and take a place right in front of the enormous tank the band performed in. Hermione leaned on a small table, and enjoyed watching Hagrid teaching Teddy some basic sign language he usually used to communicate with the Black Lake Merpeople, and Madame Maxime watching Hagrid teaching her with _that_ kind of smile. 

"Still plain but ambitious, I see," said a voice next to her. 

"Still out bugging people," Hermione gave back. 

Rita Skeeter laughed and placed one of two drinks in front of her. It was her actual laugh, a bit rusty, and far away from the shrill stress giggle she had had during the war. 

"Veritaserum?" Hermione asked. 

"Ah, no. We're better than that now, are we not? It's straight up poison." 

Hermine snorted a laugh, toasted, and took a sip. It was icevodka, an expensive one. "Ambitious is questionable, nowadays." 

"My, is it. Rumor has it that you'll move up the ranks to diplomacy within a fortnight." 

"Rumor also has it that Harry is finally banging Draco Malfoy," Hermione gave back, growing slightly annoyed. No such thing was going to happen. She would have known. 

"Can I quote you on that?" 

"Do you fancy another holiday in a glass?" Hermione asked back, but without malice.

"Honestly, the way things are going it wouldn't be the worst thing to do." Rita fumbled some strands of blond hair behind her ear. Another new, or old and returned, habit. 

"No luck with the rectifications?" 

Now, Rita snorted. "It's not that much about luck, Miss Know-it-all. It's about the public interest. And there is none." 

"No reason to cry over spilled venom, I guess," Hermione shrugged. 

"It's hard to believe that you should be indifferenent towards injustice now." 

Hermione looked at her with tired eyes. "We all have to learn to pick our battles, eventually. And the public opinion just isn't one I care for, any more." 

"In contrast to the final battle with You-know-who?" 

"Voldemort," said Hermione gently. "And yes. It always seems to come down to this battle, doesn't it?" 

Rita looked confused, and didn't know what to do with this answer. Ever since the journalist had stared working on her personal redemption arc, they had formed a fragile non-agression agreement, but were too far from being actual friends for her to follow another one of Mimi's Musings. And how could she, without the context of Hermione's mom gently mocking her daughter's Righteous Anger of the Idealist? The anger of those who did not only see what the world was, but also what it should be, and found its failing unbearable? Hermione smiled to herself. She hadn't felt idealistic in a long, long time. "I just mean the bar's pretty high, with that," she added, to drag the conversation away from more personal, and therefore dangerous, grounds. 

Rita nodded. "One might think-" 

But Hermione was not to find out what one might think. The band stopped, and the bell chimed - and the half heartbreaking, half cringeworthy macabre ritual of the ghost dance was about to start. With great bamborium, Sir Nicholas entered the hall through one of the walls, starting to lead a chorus of Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts, but then stopped mid-motion. There were no ghosts behind him. Only that weird but pointed feeling of people being stuffed into a too-small space, like prime time in the London tube. The vague, muffled sounds of mass-less beings running against a wall full speed. 

Immediately, Things Were Happening. Ginny appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Teddy from Hagrid's shoulders, pressing baby James to her chest, and legging it for the exist without a second of hesitation. 

Harry, also without hesitation, appeared right next to Nick, wand drawn. Thee other party guests, in their stride unmistakably Aurors and in their positioning unmistakably Harry's subordinates, moved out of the crowd to reappear next to him. So did Rita, plus photographer. The crowd, not frozen in confusion any more, started grouping together. They were still, even as adults, grouped by house. 

And outside the window, were the rain had finally stopped, balanced the hare on a small, gothically twirled stone. It blinked its ears at her, and Hermione could have sworn it grinned. 

Quietly, she moved through the crowd. Nobody bumped into her, nobody yelled for her, no hands on her shoulder or bare arms or, ever so fleeting on the small of her back, were there to hold her back, or guide her somewhere else. This was it, this was the middle of _something,_ and she should be in the eye of the storm as she always had been, but no one saw her. Finally, she stepped out of the window, into the cool, rich air of the night.


	4. latibule

latibule 

[engl., noun] a hiding place, a place of safety and comfort

***

They wandered silently, following one of the outside paths. Nothing too fancy, nothing the Marauders hadn't know by their third year. Just quiet flights, small stairs, here and there a carpet to move, a corner to duck under for it to become a corridor, a balkony. Spider webs and dust were their companions, and she opened her mouth a few times to warn Ron, but always closed it again without breaking the silence. 

Finally, they reached a small, quiet roof garden. It seemed abandoned, but not in the romantic way. More in the real, mouldy wood benches, weeds sticking to her robes kind of way. They were alone. 

"No one else?" Hermione asked. 

"We don't need anyone else now." 

"Something big is about to happen, right? And the ghosts are not even the start." 

"Neither was the bird," agreed the hare.

Hermione drew some breaths. She wasn't afraid. And it was scary that she wasn't scared. It was... it was calm settlement, of sorts, yet she was wide awake. The feeling that came in mid-battle, when all thoughts are focused on survival, and there was no room for doubts, or pain, or second guessing. 

She saw the raindrops glitter in the moonlight (half, by the way. After some nights you never stop checking), smelled the dust that was about to rise, the rich earth, the few blossoms of overrun roses, heard the leaves rustle. Automatically, she put an object to every shadow, checking for one too many; and also noticed that the hare didn't have one. 

Neither did she. 

"It is your choice," said the hare, when her hesitation became obvious. "You can go back, or come with me. I cannot promise you that no harm will come to you, as my kind does not lie. And I do not know. But you can help." 

"What about Harry and... and the others? They are in danger, right?" Hermione bit her lip. 

"Yes. But they cannot go where you are going. And where you are now, you cannot help them." 

"And can I return?" 

"Whenever you wish. I will teach you how to get there and back again." 

"Where are we going?" 

"Where you are needed, of course." It talked for a while more, and Hermione listened. If you let go of information about physics, atoms, and gravitational force, it is not that bad, she told herself. A walk in the park, more or less.

The first step was the hardest, of course. Science, logic and fear of heights tried to hold her to the ground. But it was, at the same time, not possible to be scared. Not in a night like this, not with Hogwarts' lights surrounding her, not with the weight of the years slowly lifting, until she was eleven again. Switch and flick, it wasn't much to it, really. 

She stepped on the wooden bench, and from there on the wooden table, and from there on the garden wall, and from there on a solid spot in between the thin air, right where its edges gleamed like concrete did in the summer heat. She liftet the long skirt, and held balance with the left arm, and was glad that she had forgotten to change into the slippers, and still wore her boots. 

With the hare graciously jumping in front of her, Hermione stepped from one spot to the next, right into the heavy darkness, and didn't look back, and didn't feel afraid. She was needed. She would be needed. There was a mystery to solve, and her Hare had come for her. 

It took a very long time, and only a few moments. It was all the same. It was neither cold nor hot, not day and not night, and it was not high above the earth, and not down in the ground. It was a path in between, and Hermione knew that she would never fully grasp what that meant. And she knew that she would set heaven and hell in motion to find out anyway. 

After seconds, or centuries, there were lights in the distance. A few more steps, and she walked out of the path as one walked out of a deep, dark forest onto a bright clearing. There were noises, and dancing lights, and it smelled of flowers and pine trees. Only now Hermione realized that there had been no smells on the path. 

She stood, and stared. The more time passed, the clearer she saw: It was a magical camp, with a few tents, a single muggle caravan, a red London bus, a shepherds hut on wheels that was way too inspired by romantic paintings, an even weirder shepperds hut on wheels with two floors and a _tower._

Beside it stood a tent for King Richard the Lionheart, all of them circling an open space with a campfire. Next to the king's tent, a huge American pickup car was rusting peacefully. A tipi tent was set up in the back. Light bulbs were put up on clothing lines from home to home (yes, she though with a small pang of longing, these were _homes)_ and glowed in a yellowish Victorian light, very clearly unbothered by actual electrical currency. Something buzzed against her skin. Someone played a flute. 

"Okay. Now the flute is over the top," Hermione mumbled. 

The Hare laughed, and the vibrating particles of night tickled Hermiones' cheeks. "Welcome to Rory's traveling circus," it said. 

"I didn't know you knew about sarcasm, Hare." 

"Oh, I chose you to run with, after all." 

Finding herself a newly proclaimed Chosen One with that, Hermione followed the Hare to the camp and felt weird, coarsly real, heavy and loud, and by far not enchanted enough for a place like this. Yet she put her shoulders back and walked. She wasn't eleven any more, and there were no floating candles dripping wax into her hair. 

When she stepped in the middle of the wooden benches, all the homes opened their various doors, and people flooded out. Around her assembled: An old man and woman, who she identified as the deceased Nicholas and Perenelle Flamell. A lanky black man in a wheelchair, Dean Thomas, and Minerva McGonagall. Then, out of the Lion Tent, stepped a person that was unmistakable her former teacher Aurora Sinistra, aged twelve, in medieval battle armor. 

The tipi tent stayed closed, but the Hare managed to slip inside anyway, leaving her alone with the strange bunch. 

"Welcome, Hermione. We had expected you earlier," said Aurora Sinistra. Rory, of course.

"I had to go to Dumbledore's memorial day," Hermione answered, and felt like failing a test. Or, what she supposed failing a test felt like. The buzzing against her skin grew stronger. 

"Charm, curse, time turner, or alternate timeline, Professor Sinistra?" She asked cooly, to try and smooth over it. 

"Timeline, so to say. Things are changing since I found the sword." 

"I always thought that strange woman distributing swords from lakes was a valid method to install a government," commended Dean Thomas. It was s _uch_ a Dean thing to say that she immediately felt more at home. 

"Are you all from... elsewhere? Elsewhen?" She asked into the round.

"I am not," Dean said. 

"You are looking for Seamus," she stated. 

"Well, someone has to," he snapped, and the Headmistress stepped forwards, but Professor Sinistra - Rory - raised a hand and stopped everyone from speaking with the greatest magic of them all - authority. 

"Let us remember who is, and who is not, the enemy." Rory gestured to the benches at the fire. "Let's sit." 

The buzzing on her skin was now almost painful. "What's with the buzzing?" Hermione asked.

"Philteritmancy," said the black man in the wheelchair and Dean Thomas at the same time.

"Just ignore it, it goes away after a while." Dean nodded at her.

As if on cue, one of the tents imploded with a soundless _mmmmph,_ and Dean rolled his eyes. "Aye, he'll be unbearable now." 

A moment later, the tent door was slammed open, a man stalked through and slammed it shut. Which was impressive, it being a fabric and all. 

"... instructed you specifically not to." The man barked, and Hermione understood that the tent, and the man personally, had been under a heavy layer of protecting charms. The door opened again.

"...instructed? I _beg_ your _pardon?"_ A woman voiced and climbed out of it with graceful annoyment. 

"Then beg!" The man crossed over the place, ripped open the caravan door, and slammed that shut. The woman threw her head around and disappeared back into the tent. 

Hermione felt that someone had gently taken her elbow and guided her to a wooden bench. Only after she sat down, felt the very real warmth of a fire on her face and a mug with hot cocoa in her hands, the realization was willing to form itself into words: "Snape," she said to no one in particular.

No one answered her.


	5. nefelibata

nefelibata [Portuguese, noun]

"Cloud Walker", one who lives in the clouds of their own imaginations or dreams, or one who does not obey conventions of society, literature, or art.

* **

"And that was Lily Po- Lily Evans." Hermione startet the obvious, following the woman with her eyes. There was no doubt. "Does she know about Harry?" That was all Hermione could think about. To hell with hares, camps and secrets. This was her best friend's dead mom and she would be damned if -

"Of course," the headmistress said gently. "She could go, but does not want to. She is not his mother, never even came close. She is from... further away."

"Also, the role of den mother is taken," said Rory, with a small nod to Dean, who puffed his chest proudly. With that, the mother-topic was abandonned in favor of other, more burning questions on the young woman's mind. "And what exactly do you have to offer, Hermione? How many battles did you win?" Aurora looked her up and down, not exactly like a man in a bar would have done, but still weighting and measuring her worth with a single gaze.

A bit miffed by the sudden interrogation, Hermione snapped: "I won the whole bloody war."

“That's good enough, I suppose. So did I."

"Twice," said the man in the wheelchair.

Aurora gave him a short, sad smile and put her focus back on Hermione, who felt childish and uncomfortable, and didn't really understand why. She did win the war, after all. She did.

"Now to our current situation. The Side Runners bring in everyone who will have a purpose in this fight, so you're here for a reason. Any ideas?” Aurora inquired.

“Logic,” Hermione supplied. “Books and cleverness, survival experience. I am battle proof and an adept researcher, I can improvise and do what's needed."

In case it sounded like she learned it by heart for job interviews, well, it was. You need to have answers to these kind of questions, even when you were Hermione Golden Trio Granger. Maybe especially when you were Hermione Golden Trio Granger.

“How about strategy?” Rory asked calmly.

“Not so much.” That had always been Ron's thing, back then, when they actually had been the Golden Trio, and not a hero, a husband, and a lost girl.

Aurora shrugged. "Show us something, then."

Hermione did not try to hide her smile. She summoned what she needed from her beaded purse, and handed it over carefully. Aurora took the red, leather bound notebook, and performed some hand movements. Diagnostic charms without a wand, Hermione recognized. And not the simple kind.

Then, the young girl opened it. "Search field?" She asked, reading out loud, directing the question to no one in particular.

"Write a subject on that dotted line, pencil, quil, finger, whatever. The book will show you an abstract of all pieces of literature with this keyword. Tap on the first paragraph that piques your interest, and read the whole chapter, right in this book." Hermione tried to keep her voice calm and neutral while speaking, and keep pride and excitement at bay. A

urora raised a brow. "Go ahead," Hermione smiled. "It includes the library knowledge."

"Of Hogwarts, London, Dublin, or the Vatican?" Aurora listed the few magic libraries that seemed to be the same everywhere, even _further away._

"Yes. A few private collections as well. I call it Boogle." She didn't expect that someone would get the joke, but both Dean and the person who had snuck up behind her back snorted. Hermione jumped around and had a wand raised - at Professor Severus Snape's throat. He also had his wand raised at her's. A long moment passed.

Everyone was quiet, only the fire danced and cracked in the background. He wasn't the professor, she understood. He was in his early thirties, not as hollow, not as waxen. His lips were full, and his eyes, while still menacing and black, had a sort of indescribable unbrokenness about them, the kind you only notice once you had seen the opposite. Every inch of his body seemed tense. Although he didn't break eye contact, Hermione was sure he saw, perceived, knew everything around them, behind her, behind him, and knew what it was and how to react to it, if needed. He was what she had claimed to be, battle proof and ready to do what was needed. 

Magic glistened from the tip of his wand, like spider legs on her throat. Being under his gaze like that made Hermione aware of how lonely, weak and small she felt. Even as an eleven years old, she had known deep in her heart that she had one up to the mighty teacher. One up that was simply being loved. Being cared for. Now, she stood in front of a man she had nothing to hold over, nothing to compare with, nothing to make her bigger. She was utterly terrified.

And then, she got really, really angry. Angry enough to wordlessly cast a Protego that, despite her wand pointing at his throat, managed to perfectly build a protective dome around her, stomping out his careful magic with a pulse. Neither of them moved. And then, at the same time, they lowered their wands.

"Fascinating," he said quietly and nodded towards the book, as if this had been a completely normal conversation. "I wonder what the Ministerium thinks of it."

"They've prohibited it, of course. It scares them, and also the whole magical knowledge industry that pays a good part of their loans. But this illustre round here did not exactly say Ministry-abiding citizens, so I do not mind sharing."

"What if we just kept it and send you home?" Snape inquired.

With every other person, she would have asked them to try. She would not ask him to try. Hermione shrugged with the shoulder that didn't hold the wand. "Do you really think it is the only copy? And my mind holds the only version of the spell to create it? Keep it then and get rid of me, if you think data and knowledge are the same."

"So you made more? I thought it was forbidden?" He asked silkily.

"I made Polyjuice in a girl's bathroom when I was twelve," she smiled with the same tone of voice. She might be scared off her robes, but she was not a child any more. He didn't have to know. And she had done way worse. Only the age seemed to irritate most people when it came to her adventures, so she used it freely nowadays, for a bit of shock. 

"And they can't hold knowledge from the people, not now, not like this. Never again." There were more sources in the world than the sodding Prophet and terribly incomplete Potions school books. 

Severus Snape put away his wand, and without caring whether or not she did the same, turned towards the benches and took a seat, stretching his long legs in carefully performed relaxation. "That might even work," he said, and Hermione snapped back to the here and now. 

Lily Evans, who apparently had snuck to the benches while Hermione was busy facing the other one, handed him a mug. "Told you, Sev."

Hermione took her book back, took care to sit as far away from the two as possible, and started to wordlessly put all layers of alert charms on herself. With these two around, she felt like she had gotten on the bad side of the Weasley twins.

It was strange, seeing the witch from Harry's photos like this. All traces of an almost too young mother were gone, or had never been, on her face. Lily was all grown up with her Audrey Hepburn pixie cut, the soft rounds of her young face now developed to an elfine sharpness. She wore muggle clothes, and held herself with the effortless viligance of her son. This, Hermione knew, was learned the hard way, and immediately she found a soft spot in herself for the woman.

Lily glanced over to Snape, who stared into the flames, and she smiled. Their shoulders almost brushed, and she felt a weird echo of the buzzing from before in between them, magic she had seen before, but never quite that strong. "You two are married?" Hermione blurted out.

"In all but the vow. It has a magical trace on it that could hurt the other," Lily said.

"You two are... spies?"

"Congratulations, Sherlock," Snape sneered. "Are you done with the social implications now, and willing to do some real work?"

"I was under the impression that social implications _are_ the real work of any situation," Hermione gave back sharper than intended. She was well aware what the glass ceiling in the ministry was actually made of. And what her strong suits were, or weren't.

Lily chuckled, and pulled the sleeves of her striped sweatshirt over her hands. "You're right, of course. Let's get to it, then. Allow me to introduce: Aurora was the first. She brought Ian from her timeline, her advisor in strategy. Minerva, Sev and me are from the same spot, we are the last from our Order. Nicholas and Perenelle, you're also familiar with. Minninnewah," she nodded to the tipi "is keeping us hidden. Dean came a week ago, and now we're almost complete. Questions?"

So this explained the weird little group of people, Hermione thought. "What's Philteritmancy?"

"A combination of Arithmancy, Potioneering, and Alchemy we're working on," Lily answered. Her voice is like honey, Hermione thought, and then she wondered if she was girl-crushing on her best friend's alternate timeline mother.

She shook her head. "How does it work?"

"We would know by now if someone didn't interrupt the very delicate net of protection by stomping in here, thus unbalancing the experiment," Snape spat at her.

"Well they're not that delicate if I was able to just stumble in," Hermione gave back.

Snape mumbled something into his coffee that made Lily giggle. Their fight from not only ten minutes ago seemed completely forgotten.

"What is said during work is outside of consequence," Lily answered the question on Hermiones face. "It wouldn't go well, otherwise."

"Not for long," the paper thin voice of Nicholas Flamell addeded. "Penny here hexed me into a lurch about every second day for the first fifteen years or so, before we found our rhythm." The old woman next to him giggled and looked as young as Lily, and Hermiones lonelyness manifested as a physical entity in her stomach, a huge, cold, heavy entity. She sighed.

Rory stood up, not suddenly, but decidedly, and waved several objects from a little leather sack she wore around her neck. The things grew back to their original size and arranged themselves on a tent wall, and with a little smile Hermione recognized a network of maps, photos, notes and red yarn, as classic muggle detectives used in movies.

"Looks like the socializing part is over," Hermione sighted in relieve. She only allowed herself a tiny little glance to Lily, who winked at her. "We are here because of the incidents, right?" Hermione asked. 

"We are not sure what causes it yet," Aurora stated "and maybe your book can be of help. All the worlds we are from are facing the same riddle in the moment. Suddenly, from one day to the other, the magic dies."


	6. agnosthesia

agnosthesia 

[n., English] the state of not knowing how you really feel about something, which forces you to sift through clues hidden in your behavior, as if you were some other person 

*** 

It should not have been such a shock, yet it was. Hermione went through the signs she had so readily ignored. What happened to the ghosts. That poor little bird. How she had felt worn out, almost washed out, disconnected even, for weeks - a constant nagging that she had blamed on a not so mild case of self pity. 

"Is everyone out there feeling disconnected from the magical world, but no one mentions it, because we are all really afraid to ask possible questions of mental health?" Someone said, and Hermione needed quite a while to figure out it had been her. The observation did not sound like her. She _confronted_ problems. Well, usually.

There was a silence. 

"Yes," said Ian. "To be able to see weakness as strength, people need security and peace, and neither one of us had that luxury in their lives. Nevertheless the resulting fragility remains a problem," he said sharply, and his words were very clearly directed at Snape and Lily, who both snorted. 

"Let's not discuss this again," Aurora interrupted sharply. She nodded at their work on the wall with growing impatience, a gesture Hermione recognized from her later teacher-self. 

Hermione got up from her seat to take a closer look, trying to turn her mind from the social implications to the riddle in front of her. She saw photos of dead birds on seemingly random places in the countryside, something that looked like a unicorn's horn, but without the unicorn attached, and several thread crossings with notes on them. A poltergeist had gotten stuck in a toilet. A muggle child had cought a niffler and held it proudly into a camera. Three people had been unable to leave Gringotts for an hour, despite being innocent of thievery, and had almost caused a diplomatic incident. Hermione remembered that one. Terrible. 

And then there was Hogwarts. Her Hogwarts, she was sure - it felt like hers. Some of these people might have come from elsewhere, or elsewhen, but these pictures and notes were from her own world. But how were they really connected? What was under the red threat? 

Suddenly, she had an idea. She scribbled something into her Boogle search bar, found the correct picture, and projected it to the wall with a sharp _Polylux_ spell and a swing of her wand. As always, the mental picture of her dad carrying home the ancient daylight projector from a garage sale made her smile. He had shushed her mom's complaints with a not so subtle hint about four old typewriters of hers, and they had laughed, and Hermione had thought: That's what love is. 

The picture appeared on the tent wall, mildy overlaying the photos and read thread. She ignored the reactions of the people around her and took a long, good, careful look. She wasn't surprised to find that all the random places of dead magical creatures matched exactly with the Ley Line crosses from her map. She turned around, to her audience. 

Nobody said a word. 

"Bloody hell," mumbled Dean. "That's like the easiest, dumbest, silliest version of a solution I have seen yet. It's so obvious." 

Hermione shrugged. "And yet." 

"And yet." Aurora nodded.

"We could have had this conclusion days ago but _someone-"_ Dean started, glaring at Snape. "

The burden of clever people. They always want everything to be clever," Lily said mildly. Hermione ignored the fact that Lily had more or less called her dumb, in favor of her not-husband. She had long learned to collect her triumphs where they fell. 

"Elementary," she shrugged, and didn't really care that she was supposed to be an adult and beyond snide remarks. "The magic is not disappearing, it is being tempered with. Gaunt's law states that _magic"cannot_ disappear, therefore it must go _somewhere._ And it is following the Ley Lines, the natural magical channels, from the outer to the inner knot points, as it naturally does. Only it moves away from their ends, to the central knot." She pointed out one of these transport ways. 

"We can see that just fine, thank you", snapped Snape, not happy about being schooled. Oh, the irony. "And where would it go?" 

"Maybe someone collected it, like the Grey Men." Dean said. 

Hermione smiled. It was always nice, talking to someone else with a muggle childhood. A real childhood, not what they had done to Harry. Suddenly, Hermione knew why her best friend wasn't here, despite being the best person for problems like these: He had never had a companion like the Hare. They had never taken him on trips long enough, and he had never been relaxed long enough to make one up. How terrible it was, even after all these years. 

She felt herself cooling on this Lily. Could the woman not get over herself and talk to him, at least? At least for a little while? Maybe, she thought, if she could solve these riddles they would owe her. 

"It cannot be that easy," Aurora mumbled, staring at her small hands, glancing at her strategist friend. "We collect the evidence for a month, Hermione shows ups and solves it. It's too easy. It's wrong." She seemed uneasy in her own skin, glancing at the map, to the left and right - constant viligance. 

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. "This is far from solved, Aurora. We have an idea of the what, but we still miss the how, the who, the why. Especially the why." Everyone nodded, and Aurora seemed relieved. Had she been worried about Hermione stealing her thunder? The black witch worried her lip between her teeth, a bad habit from the war. Why did every riddle come with the additional riddle of people?

People, that gave her an idea for the why. "Maybe this is a natural reaction to a threat, considering that some scholars like to think of magic as something inhabiting instinctual sentience. Something too big and terrible, something that would disturb the balance. It might be a natural reaction, like... birds flight. To move to the center of the Ley Crosses for safety. Seek shelter." She bit her lip again.

Why did she think of running away first? Oh, don't be silly, she chided herself, you know why. She kept theorizing out loud: "Or maybe it is following someone, or something, like iron filings follow a magnet. That would be way less esoteric. Who else is switching around in between the parallel universes?" Hermione asked the group. 

Now everyone stared at her. She shrugged. "What? Feeling special for having figured that out, are we?" That one was directed to Snape and Lily. Some people always tended to forget that other people could be just as quick, clever, and knowledgeable as themselves. A mistake Hermione was not prone to repeat.

"Another Snape," this Snape finally hissed between clenched teeth. "We have seen him." 

Did she ever hear this man speak normally, she wondered suddenly. He was always hissing, spitting, purring, lecturing, threatening, articulating. Each time he spoke, it was a show. As a child, it had impressed her, being so far from her own nervous book-babbling. Now it was just mildly annoying. 

"You should talk to him," Hermione said easily. 

"Thank you for this incredible valuable input, Miss Granger. What a pleasure, no, honor to have you with us and grace us with your wit and intelligence." Snape answered. 

"You did, and he hexed you, didn't he?" Hermione smiled. 

"To next Thursday," Lily confirmed happily, a gleam of amusement in her eyes, as she squeezed her husband's arm. 

Hermione put her focus back to the map. Aurora and Professor McGonagall had taken it down, so that it was laying flat on a wooden table. They had gone to work already, not caring if anyone could or wanted to help. Both foreheads lined with concentration, they were building an incredible complex Arithmantic matrix of silver strands on it, swinging their wands as if they were painting a three dimensional picture, leaving behind glittering threads in the air. 

Hermione watched carefully. When it went from four dimensions to eight she bit her lower lip, when it went to sixteen she slowly raised her hands to her mouth, but forgot to actually chew her nails. When it reached unbelievable thirty-two dimensions, and looked like a diamond of beautiful mathematic formula, she also forgot to breathe. 

"Breathe," said Dean, and gently rubbed her shoulders. She relaxed under her friend's hands. One of the unforseen side effects of leaving Gryffindor Tower to become an adult was feeling constantly touch-starved. Who could have known that she would actually miss people platonically crushing each other with their body weight like puppies all the time? 

She tried to breathe. It all went so fast. Evidence. Ley lines. Parallel universes. Arithmancy, mathematical formula, to figure out the if's and when's and why's of the problem for every parallel universe they might touch, uniting the information they had already collected with her random idea of the magic following the world-switching Snape. Almost too easy, like a puzzle for a younger age group... but... "It's... wrong."

Aurora, Professor McGonagall and the whole universe turned around to stare at her with the unbound rage of interrupted researchers. Hermione's hand shook as she slowly pointed her finger at the level that represented her slide of the multiple worlds next to each other, and the silver strand of runes that represented Severus Snape. 

"He died in the Shrieking Shack, not by the boat house." 

"Are you sure?" aked Aurora. 

"I was... kind of there." 

Aurora shook her head, and threw an angry glare at Dean, who was probably responsible for telling the story of his world's war. He shrugged. He had never really cared for the Professor. Most people hadn't. 

Aurora adjusted a rune, and then another. Hermione wallowed for a moment in the feeling that no one had doubted her ability to understand the complex rune work. No one had explained a thing to her at all. They had expected her to _know,_ and she had known, and all was well. 

And no words could hold a candle to this glittering figure in front of her, with all the different knot points of decisions leading to different outcomes and the goings of whole worlds, and all their splits at every turn, anyway. Data could be so beautiful. 

Carefully, Professor McGonagall added the Ley Line map to the model with a switch and flick of her wand. All the knot points from the ancient net that guided and steered the magic in Great Britain, of course running together at Hogwarts, rose from one to several dimensions. Aurora raised her hands, separated the dimensions until each had its own cube, and added the new layer to every one of them. She moved her fingers so quickly, and oddly, and elegantly, that Hermione's hands hurt just from watching. 

Carefully, Aurora added the dates of all mysterious events as small points in the dimensional picture, adjusted runes in every person she had identified as a key player wherever their strands of actions and decisions now met with the knot points. She was working in complete silence, hyperfocused, and Hermione did not really understand what she was seeing. 

Despite her taking pride in working interdisciplinary whenever she could, this mixture of arithmancy matrixes, ancient runes and what seemed to be astrophysics was a bit much. Also, her own matrix to predict possible outcomes of situations had seven branching layers of what-if scenarios, not thirty-two. And now Aurora started to mix different cubes to shining pillars, and raise new ones out of the mixtures. 

They stood in a globe of interwoven lights, turning around in awe, trying to follow the lines and strands, but in the end Hermione's eyes always came back to Aurora, and she tried to read the girls' face instead of the numbers and figures. Hermione finally ripped her eyes away from the girl at work (which was difficult, since it was utterly fascinating) and tried to read in the faces of the other people. But either she was still very bad at that, or they didn't understand it, either. Even Snape had set up a smooth facade, which usually meant he had no clue what was going on, but had a gut feeling that he wouldn't like the outcome. She remembered that face from her third year, especially. 

Finally, Aurora merged all (now unbelievable sixty-four) layers togehter to the most complex thing Hermione had ever seen with a decided gesture, lowered her hands, and they all stared. 

"Emmm," said Dean after a while. "Stupid question, but - from all the filmsy shiny stuff there, it looks like the only person with more than one connection to the happenings is Snape. Our Snape. Did you do it wrong? I mean, no offense." 

"None taken," Aurora gave back. She sounded very tired. "I am not wrong." 

"Then he is not dead," Lily said decidedly. "It's possible. When he is the one jumping on the paths, it might be." 

Hermione groaned. Bad case of time-travelling, then. "Paths? So this place is not the only one, and they are outside of space and time?" 

Lily made a gesture that roughly translated to _Duh._ But despite this new load of information, Hermione felt a smile creeping into her face. "I know why I'm here now. Forget logic, you all are logical people. And clever. But I'm the only one here, I'm quite sure of that, who lived two years in one with a time-turner. If he is using these... these paths as a time device, he might not even be dead yet. In real time. As the matrix says. And we might find out what he knows. And if the magic is following him, or he is following the incidents." 

And help him to finish his mission, she added in her mind. Harry had shared his story with her and Ron, all of it, not only what was needed to clear his name. Help him find peace, she thought. She refused to think: Get what we need before he dies. She never wanted to be that cold, calculating person from the war again. She refused to be. 

So instead, she said out loudly: "And help him with it."


	7. wytai

Wytai (noun) A feature of modern society that suddenly strikes you as absurd and grotesque 

* **

She was back in the tent in the Forest of Dean, cold and hungry, but the boys were not there. She did not hear them breathe, or agrue in mumbled voices, and that alone made her jolt up in panic. 

Which made her moan in pain. 

Which cleared her head. 

Hermione forced herself to take slow breaths and look around to actually assess reality. Poppy had taught her this in the few months before her hastyly taken exams. 

The tent was high above her. Pieces of broken glass littered the floor - she had been sleeping on the carpet, her body working through a blood replenish potion and a healing potion. She was sore and her mouth tasted horrible. She touched her hot lower lip, where she had cut herself on the bottle she had smashed last night. Her eyes moved down her arm with the engraved slur by force of habit, the - _**od**_ shining through her ripped clothes, then at her hand where her engagement ring was pointedly missing. Both things, what was there and what wasn't there any more, anchored her. 

But it wasn't enough. "My name is Hermione Jane Granger, I am twenty-six years old, I used to live in Solsbury Hill, London, before going to Hogwarts." _To become a witch and change the world_ got stuck in her throat as she heard her own voice. It was coarse, and deep, and sounded as if she had not used it for too long. How long had she been sleeping? 

The events of the last day came back to her. Dumbledores death day, the hare, the camp, the battle. Had it really been just one day? She flicked her wand into her hand. "Tempus?" She asked. "Oh, for crying out loud," she said to no one, just to hear a voice. June 18, 1993. Her time-turner year. Why the hell had she landed here? An accident? Something the hare had done for a reason? Her meddling with time? 

Oh, of course. A little light bulb went 'ding' inside of her head. There was a Snape slipping in and out of the hidden paths, the Snape from her timeline. The Snape who could stop the magic dying, as Aurora's arithmancy had suggested - or was at least somehow connected to it. The Snape who was supposed to be dead by the time she was twenty-six, whose funeral she had witnessed, shaking in Ron's arms. The only logical explanation was that he was slipping in and out of time, too, right now. Probably with the Time-Turner that had - no, should have been - given back to the ministry yesterday twelve years ago. Her Time-Turner. 

Here it was, her next puzzle, her next step. She knew she needed that. She needed to get up, find the answers, solve the riddle, never be wrong. She needed to be mind and all mind to make it out of the war again, back again, and through this danger for her magic, the beating heart inside of her. The woman with the black, black hearts raised in her hands - no, she told herself. Snape. Riddle. Get up. 

Her body was sore, filled with pain and holding anxiety of too many years, her heart yearned for a shelter that was no more - not at her parents', not at Hogwarts, not at the empty flat where she had lived with Ron, and her deeper feelings begged her to curl up and hide, but her brain latched onto the puzzle, and her brain she would follow. She would get up, find Snape, and solve it. 

But was she here to help him, or to stop him? Did the magic follow him, or was he following the incidents? And how could she find this out? How could she find him? She had no idea where her teachers had spent their summers. 

She bit her lip while thinking, crossing her arms under her head and staring at the tent roof. The man had faced a werewolf for the second time in his life, had to watch his old nemesis and an Order of Merlin slip through his fingers, and had probably been informed about Trelawneys latest prophecy already. And he might have pulled a highly illegal stunt to get his hands on a Time-Turner, and would have already found out that he could not go back in time further than ten years, rendering it useless to save his Lily.

Where would he be? What would he do? What would she do, in his place? 

Drinking, said a nonchalant voice in her head. She pulled at face at it, but actually, it was the only lead she had. With a wave of wand, she cleaned herself up. It took her several long minutes to muster the courage for a look into the mirror. Last night, her flesh had been on fire. Today, there was no trace of it, apart from a few silvery grey strands in her wiry curls and the cut on her lip. And something in her eyes. Something she didn't want to think about. 

In the end, it did not really matter. The grey would make her even more invisible, which was probably exactly what she needed right now. She Apperated to Hogsmeade without so much as a third thought. 

Her home was not her home. This came as a shock, which showed her how weak she still was. Hermione Jane Granger had never struggled with wrapping her mind around the changes of time. Her family had moved a lot, and not being able to return to an apartment that used to be home was second nature to her. Home was something you carried, something small but endlessly deep, like her beaded purse. And yet, the wet cobble stones and the missing cottages of New Hogs' were unwelcome and cold to her.

She searched in her purse for a bit, finally pulled out a battered dark cape and put the hood over her curls. Hands deep in the pockets, she strolled towards Aberforths place. Snape just wasn't the butterbeer type. 

The bar was stuffed with people. Teachers, their partners, others she had never seen. Delivery people, she thought suddenly. Suppliers, helpers, shopkeepers, deliverers of food, seeds, tools. Magic could not solve every problem, that she knew all too well. Was that Hagrid over there, talking to a shady figure, about to deal something in for Blast-Ended Skrewts? 

Her eyes flickered left and right, over men and women, tired faces of adults who had seen too much already, and were only set up to see more right now, like chess pieces. It made her angry, and how angry it must have made Severus Snape? 

He would be in disguise, she thought suddenly. If he was there at all. And then, a man stood out of the crowd for her. He was blond, slim, in flashy muggle clothes, an open robe draped carelessly over his shoulders. But it was the hands that gave him away to her, too slim for his working class appearance. He caught her mustering him, smiled briefly, and returned the favor. 

She was now being mustered, and found that she didn't care for it. People didn't look at her _like that._ In the magical community she was Hermione Granger, one third of the Golden Trio, and people _knew_ what she looked like. In the muggle word she was a jumpy, too skinny black woman with natural hair and odd jumpers, and not worth a second look to most. And she preferred it like that. 

The man wandered over. "Haven't seen you here." His voice didn't match, which was not a surprise. 

"I'm here for... the next school year. Stuff's going on." 

"Yah. Teachers dropped hints. Good year t'bring in pumpkin juice, I hearsay." The man smiled. 

Oof. Would Professor Snape speak like that, to get information from a stranger? Don't be silly, Mimi, she chided herself. At this point he had done worse for less. 

Might be him, she thought. "Revelio totalis," she cast with barely a whisper, newest invention of one of Harry's campfire nights. It would reveal the true face of a person under every glamour, given the caster wore a tiny, faceted diamond on their person - a miniature spyglass. Hermione wore two, as earrings. She never took them off. 

The blond man with the beard and ponytail stayed exactly that. A blond man with a beard and ponytail in obnoxious clothes, even for a wizard. 

Yoga, supplied her brain, the next best solution. Horses, not unicorns. Oh no, she thought. His not-matching appearance including nonsensical accent was carefully curated, but not to hide his true nature: to flaunt it. 

"Y'r chacras are wide open, it's beautiful," he said to her. 

Hermione, once again regretting that she had to talk to people to find the right people to talk to, smiled sweetly. "Um, thanks?" 

"But you seem tense. Have you cleared your magical knot points lately?" 

"No, but I'm sure you are willing to teach me how?" If he had noticed her sarcasm, he didn't care. Now that had gone south super quick. She rolled her eyes. A woman could only stand so much nonsense, after all. 

Sadly, this meeting was not the weirdest of its kind she had had. When she'd still lived in London, run-ins with the New Boheme mostly followed that cluster: Completely nonsensical words said in a velvety tone. How empty. How absurd. How grotesque, this kind of game where nothing was at stake. 

Of course Luna had loved it. That girl had spent her first year after the war dating every hippy available, boys and girls alike, sometimes simultaneously. Hermione had actually liked the girls. Sure, they always wanted to read her palm, but they were way less creepy than the dudes. Oh yeah, right. She focused on her environment again. 

"... but now I think you seem like a woman that would really profit from meditation."

The man had finished a speech she was not sorry to have missed. 

"I am a woman that should really not sit in silence with her own thoughts, thank you." She tried it friendly. He didn't deserve her wrath. Not really. He was just some guy, doing his thing, with no harmful intention. But still. 

"But have you ever tried?" 

No, she took it back. There was a harmful intention. He wanted her to feel small and stupid, so she would maybe go home with him. But she wasn't small. And she wasn't stupid. And she would not have gone home with him if he were the last human on earth. "No, of course not. Thank you. Thank you so much! All my life some part of me has desperately waited for a mediocre white man to solve my problems."

Hermione retreated. This man was not Severus Snape, and this mission was a colossal waste of time, and she was tired and her scar hurt and so did her head, and her heart, and in general she ached to be alone. 

Behind her someone snorted. Hermione turned around, ready to figuratively (and maybe literally) cut a bitch, and saw a man with short, sandy hair, a beard, and black eyes behind ugly horn glasses.

It was him. It was definitely him.

She knew, and then she didn't know how she could have doubted her ability to recognize him at all. She had stared at this man for six long years, trying to get behind his secrets, his alliance, his trustworthiness, his next cruelly testing question. Every tiniest movement of his head, fingers, lips was familiar to her.

"Revelio totalis," she cast again, wordlessly, driven by the same anxiety that made her type 5+6 into the calculator. And yet again, the man did not change. But, on the second glance, he had changed. His shoulders were slimmer, his nose longer. 

And something in his eyes changed. It was him, and Hermione stood flabbergasted. She had not expected to get this far. 

"You are late," he said, and she recognized the voice. She had listened to it for six full years, after all, and it was a remarkable voice. 

"Y'know him, lass?" said the chacra-reading wizard. 

"Yes," she answered, gave him a very fake excusing smile, and nodded at the door for Snape to follow her. Of course she knew Snape. But she had no idea how he knew her. 

Silently, they walked up the wooden stairs to one of the sitting rooms Aberforth held open for his more valued customers. Harry, Ron and her had met there every Thursday while she was finishing her schooling. The picture of the fruit bowl that dominated the room led directly to the kitchen corridor of Hogwarts, she remembered. 

"You are late," Snape said again as the door closed. "And... not in the best condition." 

"You are in muggle disguise," she said, instead of answering him. "A wig and a fake beard under the Notice-me-not. This is why my spell did not work." 

"What spell?" 

"Revelio totalis." 

"I have never heard of it." 

"I invented it." 

"You show no talent for creative magic at your current age." 

Now that annoyed her. It had been that year she had come up with the enhanced tempus spell, after all! Also, she had been what, thirteen? "Not everyone has had the privilege to grow up with a magical parent. I approached the subjects like chemistry, where you need to be exact, not cooking, where you can follow your gut if you have the talent. I didn't know that was an option at my current age," Hermione said coldly. 

She was tired, he was obnoxious, and she was _so_ over people telling her what she could and could not do. 

"This may be the first time someone accused me of having been a privileged child. And, by the way - how do you know?" Now, his wand was in his hand. And behind the wig and beard were his dark eyes, the way she had known them: restless, full of distrust in the world, the future, himself. 

It was wrong, compared to the other Snape she had met, the one who had Lily. Wrong, and sad, and something she suddenly wanted to fix so badly her whole heart yelled out to him, melting the cold anger away.

Stop, she told herself. Don't S.P.E.W this up. Don't try and save those who don't want to be saved, without knowing what it would do, without even doing so much as asking. 

"Everyone knows in my time," she said gently. "Harry cleared your name." 

"I must be dead, then. How very irritating." He did not lower his wand. 

"When did we agree on this meeting, Professor?" 

"When you pulled me out of the river." Snape said, as if this was supposed to explain anything. 

She raised an eyebrow to conceal the sudden panic in her stomach. More past-future ahead. Hurray. 

Snape's face changed to one of his annoyed grimaces. Now that she was an adult, it was not really scary. More a reason to offer him some paracetamol. "When I was seven. You said the next time we meet will be the beginning of the end of the world. But you are about thirteen years late for that." 

Oh no, she thought. Oh no. How was she supposed to do that? Suddenly too exhausted for everything, she turned away to sit on the worn leather couch where she had once cuddled up on Ron. Snape, completely taken aback by her lack of respect for his raised wand, sat down in a chair opposed to her. She didn't care. It wasn't the first time. 

"You have not done that yet," he concluded. 

"Not the best day for the both of us." 

"One could agree to that." He sounded tired, and irritated, and his voice was hollow. Still, so utterly wrong. Where was the anger about his upcoming death, the defiance, the _spite_ of his other version? Had the world really beaten it out of him already? 

"Do you want a drink?," she offered. 

"I beg your pardon?" 

"Then beg," she smiled, and dug a silver flask out of her handbag. 

So they sat there, on the first day of the summer break, both exhausted from battles they could not talk about, knowing each other and not knowing each other, one playing poker and one playing chess, but both only equipped with Gobstones, drinking in silence. 

"Why do you accept a drink from me? Could me anything," Hermione said after a while, re-appearing from her mind. 

"You just told me when I died. In your time. Which is?" 

"None of your business." 

"Let us see." He put down the flask to built a small roof with his long fingers, as he had done so often during his teaching hours. "You are what, twenty-eight? So, about thirteen years from now. For news to spread like this, it needs at least a year. I probably die late in the war. So, ten more years. That is bearable." He sighted. 

How utterly wrong he was. And how utterly sad this all was. Sad, wrong, terrible. Four more years, and then the snake. 

"You have seen battle. Maybe you even saw me die. Did you, Granger? Are you here for me? " 

Now that hit way too closer, way to fast. Snape at his best. Snape at his worst. "Just stop it, Sherlock. Yes, I am here for you. The magic is dying in my time, and the people fighing against it think that you are connected to it. You have my Time-Turner, and you slip around in between the worlds." She knew this wasn't the way to release information in a way that made others trust her. That was Harry's game, but he wasn't here, and she wasn't him, and she felt she only had one shot. 

"Times," he said in his annoying teacher voice. 

"Worlds" "Hermione announciated. 

"Is that why you came talking to me? Because you need something?" 

"No, for the immense comfort of your company. Believe me, I'd rather have literally anyone else," Hermione sighed. That wasn't even a lie. Minerva, Dumbledore, Lupin, hell, thirteen year old Harry, none of them would treat her like that. But here he was, and here she was. 

"Why don't you go for younger self? Two know-it-alls could figure this out in less time than this useless conversation takes." 

"I did think about that, Snape, actually. I'd love to talk to her. She's reliable. And nice. Sharp mind. And wow will I be lonely next year. But I haven't, so I can't." 

Snape understood, or ignored, the time paradox with no effort whatsoever. "I hardly believe in you being lonely, Granger. Third of the Golden Trio. Please refrain from the self pity, it makes an annoying situation unbearable." And there was this slight, gruel grin, from the growing teeths incident. The one that was ahead of her younger self. 

"Oh, we both know what these childhood friendships are worth," she snapped, thinking of her breakup with Ron, and Harry being awkward, and Ginny being cold, and her being the third, less-preferable friend forever, and yet taking it, since it was friendship at least - never first place, but who could have it all? 

She looked back into Snape's face, and found it pale and cold and _dangerous._

"What. Do you. Mean." He hissed, clutching his wand, his knuckles white. 

Hermione started to cry.


	8. aftersome

aftersome [adj, English]: astonishment to think back on the bizarre sequence of accidents that brought you to where you are today 

* **

It was a real crying attack, as she went through every few months, mostly during that time of the month as well, to push things from bad to terrible. Nothing more pathetic than crying to your hot water bottle over a bucket of ice cream. Oh, she was so cliché sometimes, Hermione mused. 

Then she remembered that she just turned into a red faced, blotchy, snotty mess in front of the one teacher she had never been able to impress. Well, him and Mr. Krambach, that son of a bitch PE monster who seemed to enjoy making little kids feel completely worthless. And - she couldn't calm down. She just couldn't. She frantically searched her bag for some hankies, and wasn't sure if she wanted to take a calming potion in front of her former teacher. 

"What are you thinking right now?" Snape asked. In the exact same tone and wording as Poppy used to, during their sessions after the war; Poppy in her chair, Hermione straight-backed on the sofa, unable to lay down. Hermione decided to take it as an olive branch and accept it. 

"I could never... impress you or... Mr. Krambach... t-the PE teacher. He... yelled... so much..." 

"PE was the reason I burned down the school building," Snape said nonchalantly. 

Now that took the wind out of the sails of her emotions. "W-what?" 

Every other person would have shrugged, Snape just moved his mouth a little. "Accidental magic, when I was eight. It was covered up, of course. After that my mother stopped caring so much about forcing me to muggle school." 

Hermione felt herself smile through the few leftover tears that insisted on falling, despite the crisis being over. "We had... we had a frog in a terrarium. I freed the insects meant to feed it, on accident. Then I felt terrible for the hungry frog and freed it too. It was s-such a mess. All the girls were in their chairs, screaming. " 

Snape actually rolled his eyes. And Hermione laughed. And with that laugh, her emotions finally settled and made room for her usual, logical self. "Why are you still here with me, Professor? I don't remember you being all patient and supportive." 

"Think, Granger." 

Ah yes, so much for that. Olive branches he might offer but no lifebuoys. She'd have to swim by herself. "I saved your life several years ago and just told you magic would die, and I know how the war ends? And you need that information from me? And also something we agreed on in Future-Past? " 

"So, some brains are left in you. That is a comforting thought." He leaned back with that tight-lipped smile he had right before wiping someone's cauldron.

"You're a right bastard, you know that?" Hermine slapped a hand over her mouth and felt the blood rush into her cheecks. He was a professor! A war hero! He was _dead,_ for crying out loud! 

"Pity. I had aimed for _bloody_ bastard." 

He had... humor? And had just told her a childhood story? And the way he was sitting now, leaned back, hands in a roof, he was more and more like alternate Snape. The warrior Snape, cruel and sharp and _beautiful_ like a blade. Suddenly, her stomach performed an artistical flip.

Hermione had never been one for butterflies, realizing her own feelings had been more of a hit-in-the-face-realization.

Oh no, Mimi, she chided herself. You went from hope to fear to exhaustion to frantic crying to manic giggling in ten minutes. You don't have a crush on Professor Snape, the dead war hero. Get it togehter. He is not _hot._

But he looked different to her than mere moments ago. His eyes were bigger and darker. He had been open, and raw, and vulnerable for a minute. Probably just tactical, to get information, but she was here to give him information. She needed to cooperate with this man. She needed his help. And he needed hers. They were on a quest togehter, now. 

"The magic. I noticed it for a while. Magical creatures died. Spells flickered out without achieving anything. It was... dull. Like a sound you are used to is suddenly gone. Then, ghosts got stuck during..." Hermione took a deep breath and made a decision. The decision to not be Dumbledore, to not feed people the information she thought they should have to benefit her own goals. 

"Sir," she said slowly, "do you want to help me with that? I came here because I need your help, but you have done more than enough. Really. You don't have to do that as well. You don't have to know. I can even erase this meeting for you, if you want to. I am, let's say, a bit of an authority for memory magic now." 

"How comes?" 

"During the next summer, I will erase my parent's memories of me and send them to Australia to protect them from the war that will come. I will find them later, and will join the best in their field to restore what I did. It... it works out. It is very painful for everyone involved, but it works out. I give the spells to Mungos for further development, and work as an Obliviator." 

Snape looked at her, with that teacher-face that meant the question wasn't answered sufficiently. 

Hermione felt the heat return to her face. "I am... I am trying to get through a sort of ethical guideline for it. It's hard but moved forwards, or I think it does. And... and no, it doesn't work for the Longbottoms. We tried to find the memories and tried to isolate them, but that's not... not how brains work. I try to get the healers in contact with muggle scientists but..." 

"… but the magical society would rather accept their best to waste away before risking the exposure of our world. After all this time, you still have no grasp on the reality of necessary sacrifices." Snape finished the sentence for her, detached and aloof again. 

Hermione laughed. This time, it was a harsh, cold laugh that definitely got his attention. The reality of necessary sacrifices. He knew nothing, she realized. The smartest man she knew, and he knew nothing.

Sharp, cold anger awoke in her stomach, and with that she had gone through her whole spectrum of emotions in under sixty minutes. She would be exhausted for days after that, a part of her thought, but another part of her wanted to summon a flock of yellow birds to pick out his silly un-knowing brain,aand bring the conversation back on track, and get it over with. Or follow him on the path where he had steered them, and stand her ground here. Birds sounded very, very promising right now. But she wasn't fourteen any more. She was an adult witch with a job and a house and bills. _She_ _could use words._

"I never understood," Hermione said, forcing herself to sound casual, "how you believe in the system this much. I read it in the archives, you know. When you almost died with the werewolf incedent, you wanted your bullies expelled, nothing more. When authority refused, you withdrew into yourself, and when you saw Black again, believing him a convicted murderer, you handed him over to authority. Like a good, law abiding citizen, despite questioning everything else. Even the textbooks." She put out every word carefully, tasting it on her tongue, like laying down her ethical causes in front of the Wizengamot, gently, with iron underneath. 

He became paler. One hit more, Hermione thought, and he'd be paler than a ghost. Now suddenly she felt like a chess player, moving sentences like figures. Dumbledore had been a Gryffindor as well, she thought. He had been their teacher, more than they had known, more than they had wanted him to be. 

"Because, Miss Granger, that is how the world is supposed to work, right? Trust in systems, beware of single people." Snape wasn't having it. He just blocked her right away. 

Yet, Hermione snorted. He had it all wrong. 

"Very well, Missy Anarchy. When did your faith in the system break?" And now he attacked her right back, mirroring her tone, her sentences, dripping from irony instead of honey. 

She smiled at him, intrigued in this game they had started playing out of nowhere. Nothing she hadn't figured out during all of these nights of self reflection (or whatever the kids nowadays called it to sit on the bedside for two hours, wrapped in a towel, staring into the void instead of getting ready). She took a sip from her bottle and put it back on the table. 

"When we had figured out who was trying to steal Flamells stone. Um, we thought it was you, sorry. But still, the danger was there. We told McGonagall, but she just dismissed us. A teacher. Our teacher, our head of house! Who should have been like family! She dismissed us and sent us away. We decided to deal with it ourselves in the same night." 

"I remember," Snape said darkly. "Still getting a migraine just thinking about it. But what of it?" 

"We never went to the authorities again with a problem." 

And there it was, a hard and cold truth. Some teachers, like Lupin and Dumbledore and even the fake Moody, had made Harry accept their help and council. And she herself had pushed Harry a lot to talk to one of them time and time again, but did she ever take it into her own hands? 

"We were... everything and everyone outside of us was not trustworty, after that. I broke this rule only once. I told McGonagall about that broom of Harry's in third year, and they froze me out for weeks. Anyways. I learned that it was us to solve the problem or it would remain unsolved." 

"Sounds dark for an eleven years old." 

"It was. It was even darker for Harry, though. No, don't look at me like that. He's smart, and not cruel at all. But this whole thing resulted in me brewing Polyjuice in a girl's loo when I was twelve, I trapped a reporter in a jar for several weeks when I was fourteen, and founded a student guerilla group at sixteen." 

Hermione bit her lip, and then sighed, because it still hurt. "Before I say anything else I shouldn't: Do you want in on that? If not, I'll solve it by myself. I'll leave you to do whatever it is with the Time-Turner. I'll find out how to save you from the river as a child. We will never have to speak again." 

"You think you can do that on your own?" he sneered. 

"I have faced worse," Hermione said calmly. And she meant it. Her emotions had settled. She was not Dumbledore, and not Aurora the child knight, and not Harry, the sacrificial lamb. She was Hermione Jane Granger and she had faced worse. She touched the scar under her sleeve. It hurt. "

What's that?" Snape demanded to know. Left arm, of course. Did he suspect her to hide a Dark Mark? Hermine smiled a bit, since this was a ridiculous thought. 

"A souvenir from Bella." Carefully Hermione bared her arm. Something shifted in Snape's face. It was as if he had stepped back from her, from all of it, without moving, and his eyes were empty. 

Hermione had seen that expression before on him, several times. Talking to him would definitely get her snapped at. But she wasn't a child any more. He would not take away house points. Especially not this version of him. And she was a trained ministry professional now. She knew things. "You're using occlumency. Why?" 

"You're being noisy and annoying. Why?" 

Sure, there it was. Good old Snape. Suddenly something dawned on her. "You're having a panic attack?" 

Quickly she pulled down her sleeve. He probably had been on the receiving end of Voldemorts cruelty several times. "Sorry." 

"You? You are sorry? What for, pathetic girl?" Snape snapped, but Hermione smiled. "

For reminding you of something you'd rather forget, out of carelessness. It's a new experience, casually mentionning something normal for me, but everyone else thinks it horrid. I have that in common with Harry." 

As she had hoped, the name snapped him out of his spiraling mind. "And what would our dearloved savoir have so horrid to share?" 

"His upbringing, for example. Ron once told me that he was terribly scared when he went to the Burrow for the first time and Ginny kept interrupting Arthur during dinner. Flinched at every move the man made. Wait, are you - are you occluding again?" Hell, what did she do now? 

"I assumee gracious Mr. Potter had informed the whole world about all details of my life, given your apparent in-depth knowledge of it" he hissed as an answer. 

"Just that you grew up poor and somewhat lonely. Nothing about abuse." He stared at her. She stared at him. Nobody flinched. 

"Why are you keeping that scar as it is?" Severus barked at her, gesturing angrily. 

"My ever-growing need for attention, of course," Hermione deadpanned. "Are you suggesting there's a cure?" 

"Obviously." 

"No one at Mungos even had an idea."

 _"Obviously."_ Snape rolled his eyes. "If you are supposed to be of any help with whatever it is you are babbling about magic dying, you cannot drag around an old curse wound." He stood up, straightened his robes and walked to the door. 

Hermione sat dumbfounded from the sudden shift in, well, everything. 

"Do you need an extra invitation, Granger? A golden carriage? Red carpet?" 

Hermione secured the flask on her bag and got up, as well. She still felt utterly exhausted. "Thank you, I guess?" 

"We are even then." Snape shrugged.

And within her exhaustion, there was something else. Something she hadn't felt in a long, long time. Peace. She had tried with her quiet life, her job, the few familiar people she talked to, and empty cottage. But she had not been peaceful, she had been numb. Now, after the fight and the fire, and these wild roller coaster ride of emotion, there was her own kind of peace, right here in the eye of the storm, with everything behind her and everything before her, and the next catastrophe tingling right in front of her fingertips. 

Hermione found herself smiling. "Or friends?"

She didn't know exactly why she had said that. It was the old, _some things you can't do together without becoming friends, and curing an evil curse was part of it,_ which was sitting in her mind. 

Again, Snape wasn't having it: "Sure. Because _that_ is going to happen." 

Funnily enough, that was exactly what happened.


End file.
